Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

Biking to school

This picture from January 2010 is one of my favorite pictures of my kids. They were 3 and 5 years old and BOTH of them would learn to ride without training wheels by spring break of that same year a couple months later … Anyway, we have a giant canvas print of this picture hanging on the entryway to our house. When we picked our house, we knew it was close to school, but we didn’t know that there was a trail through the woods that made it even easier to walk/bike our kids to school. In Davis, California where Analise was born and where I went to grad school there are miles and miles of trails enough to connect every school in the city from just about anywhere in the city.

Yesterday, when I rode out towards Helena I noticed a trail and tunnel near the Helena Middle School – but I was pressed for time to be back in time to meet the kids to walk home from school – so today I went back to explore this cool looking bike trail in more detail (after checking out the satellite photos to see not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR tunnels on the trail). And what I discovered is the trail is long enough to connect the Helena Middle School to the Helena Elementary school via the Hillsborough neighborhood – 2.5 miles of trail and low traffic neighborhood streets.

I was inspired to post this after reading about the cool stuff that bicicoop is doing in Birmingham and happy to report on a new route for kids to bike to school in Helena. It’s definitely not Davis, but it’s a start! You can see my entire route here and zoom into very good detailed satellite view of the four tunnels here (switch to satellite view) – http://app.strava.com/rides/3482902